Grandmother Maria was born on 15 February 1932. She was born in Úbeda, in the province of Jaén, where the entire agricultural environment was devoted to olive growing. Her mother, Bisa Rosa, with a series of small olive groves, developed her economic activity in the production of picual variety olive oil, passing on to her daughter Maria all her affection and love for the land. Those were the times when the olives were picked up from the ground, on their knees, one by one by the women and transported to the oil mills with donkeys. It was work from sunup to sundown.
Later, grandmother María married grandfather Gabriel, who was a mechanic, and together, for the love they had for their land, with passion, hard work and a lot of effort, they expanded their olive grove year after year. They left a legacy of more than three hundred hectares of picual olive trees to their two sons.
These were times in which women lost all prominence, being relegated to the background.
This family tradition of love for the olive tree was passed on to his son Ramón Garrido, who in turn passed it on to the fourth generation, who now run the exploitations.
Grandmother María's son, Ramón, who is my father, inherited two centenary olive groves of the picual variety, and entrusted me, as an Agricultural Engineer, with the modernisation of the farms, maintaining a sustainable balance with the environment.
In November 2021, the company developed a line of early harvest EVOO, with a very limited edition, as it is only bottled and marketed on the first day of the harvest. This EVOO honours and pays homage to grandmother María and to all the women who for a long time, after our civil war, were little considered, if not marginalised and forgotten.
The EVOO "Hacienda Abuela Maria" arises after four generations of a family that has developed its productive activity as harvesters. From the time when Rosa used to pick the olives by hand and transport them by donkey until the present day; the company has been mechanised and modernised, with a human and technological team that works all year round to obtain a quality EVOO with total personality and excellence.
The EVOO "Hacienda Abuela Maria" is born from centenary picual olive trees after an early harvest only from the canopy, so that all the organoleptic characteristics, and all the sensory experiences come directly from the field to your table. Its colour is golden green and its fruity flavour with green nuances of fresh fruit, vegetables and plants of the countryside, will not leave you indifferent.
Our EVOO is the perfect result of the fusion of the climatic, orographic and soil conditions of our nature of Jaen and the affection and constant work of a family obstinate in maintaining the family tradition, perpetuating the legacy.
Social responsibility.
The land has managed to give us so much that we will always be indebted to it. Our commitment to society is materialised by promoting contemporary art in the House-Museum Valencia 13 in Ubeda, an institution that, since 2019, brings cultural activity to this World Heritage city, through the fusion of popular architecture with contemporary art. Bringing art and culture closer to the simple people is to create a more humane society, with feelings and values that make it more supportive and help to alleviate social exclusion.
